[Vision2020] cellulosic alcohol (butanol)

Sat Sep 2 16:20:31 PDT 2006

Donovan, Jim et. al.

Cellulosic biofuel, as Jim points out (I was amazed to hear former Federal
Reserve head Alan Greenspan on C-Span lecturing members of the US Congress
on cellulosic biofuels!), can be produced from forest industry waste (timber
slash), or from fast growing trees (like Chris's example from Alaska), or
from straw, the primary biomass for a proposed cellulosic biofuel plant
Iogen is going to build in Southern Idaho.  Several advantages of cellulosic
biofuels is that they do not require using food crops, nor petroleum sourced
fertilizers, as Jim mentioned.  The biomass can be grown on land not
suitable for food crops.

I was unaware that, according to Jim, there is a kind of biofuel that can
run in existing gasoline engines with no modifications.  Of course many of
us already use a small percentage of  biofuel (ethanol) mixed with the gas
we use.

Most of the biofuel produced in the USA at this point in time is corn based
ethanol, not the most efficient biomass for biofuels, produced using a lot
of upstream fossil fuel, with government subsides, so this model is not
going to solve the fossil fuel depletion/global warming problem, given the
experts testimony that I have read on this subject.

Brazil already has a large percentage of their vehicles running on biofuel
from sugar cane, so this is perhaps a good laboratory to study the realistic
applications of biofuels in the long term.

Donovan is correct, I think, to point out the ecological and
food production impacts of massive biofuel production.  The fuel would have
to be sourced from sustainable biomass sources, that avoid turning food land
over to biofuel land, and not destroy important ecosystems.  These are some
of the conditions that make biofuels problematic as a dominant solution,
along with the efficiency problems of biofuel production.

But in an area such as the Palouse, with our limited (for now) population,
and the forest and agricultural biomass potential in our area (straw, not
food crops, for example), a biofuels plant might supply significant amounts
of economcally and ecologically self sustaining CO2 neutral fuel.  Maybe not
enough for all vehicles in Moscow and Pullman, but enough to make a
difference.

If Iogen ever gets that cellulosic plant going in Southern Idaho, this will
reveal more about cellulosic biofuel as a realistic alternative.

Donovan, the catch in your response on raising taxes on gasoline is "at a
future date."  If we wait till fossil fuel depletion and market forces push
gas prices up up and away, we won't need to raise the gas tax to promote
alternative fuels or energy sources. The question is, what can be done now
to address these problems?  Any politician advocating 5-10 dollar a gallon
gas, due to a massive gas tax, would face massive opposition.  I'm not
saying raising gas taxes is not a good idea as a solution to encouraging
alternative fuels and energy sources, but that given political realities,
what are the chances to pass such a tax?

Even significantly raising the CAFE MPG standards, which should have been
done a decade or more ago, has faced massive opposition.

Ted Moffett

On 9/2/06, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Ted and Jim,
>
> The problem with switching to a plant or grown substance from gasoline is
> that change also impacts the environment because of the volume or whatever
> it is that you are growing. A billion new (insert plant here) is going to
> change the ecological system of the region.  Also, if it replaces one crop,
> like say wheat, it messes with the wheat production which impacts world
> grain prices and could led to some nations not getting enough food, or a
> giant famine in some poorer parts of the world.
>
> I think that whatever we switch to needs to be sustainable, preferably
> produced entirely, or mostly, here in the United States, or a friendly
> nation, not one that wishes us harm.
>
> Ted, I don't think fixing the price of gasoline at a future date in time
> is politically unachievable. $7.50 a gallon is likely to be the price of gas
> anyways by the year 2012. But setting a price now adds predictability to the
> market and that will encourage companies to put capital into creating
> alternative fuel sources. If investors know that they can beat gasoline at
> $7.50 a gallon, then they know they have a marketable product. As it sits
> now, they don't know if gasoline will be $1 or $100 in 2012. So they are
> less likely to invest in researching and developing an alternative to fossil
> fuels.
>
> Best,
>
> _DJA
>
>
>
>
> *Jim Meyer <m1e2y3e4 at moscow.com>* wrote:
>
> Ted and all,
> Cellulosic alcohol is great idea. Alan Greenspan thinks it is a good
> idea. I hadn't really known it had come of age before hearing Mr.
> Greenspan talking about it. The big idea with cellulosic alcohol is that
> it can be produced from plants that require very little oil based
> fertilizer input. As I recall, and I might be wrong, corn requires about
> 300 pounds of nitrogen/acre. Even with the best legume crop rotation you
> could never produce corn without external fertilizer. Cellulose on the
> hand, can grow without external nitrogen sources. Furthermore, we do
> have plenty of timber slash and marginal lands that can grow sturdy, low
> input cellulosic crops. So I second your suggestion even to the point of
> wanting to start my own plant, if that were even remotely possible.
> Secondly, I would produce cellulosic butanol, not ethanol. See
> http://www.butanol.com/. Supposedly it can replace gasoline directly
> without any engine modifications. What could be better? Currently, if
> you want to run an E85 vehicle, either you have to buy a vehicle so
> designed or you have to do considerable retrofitting. Without the
> necessity of retrofiting, butanol appears to have it all over ethanol,
> not to mention generally better fuel characteristics than ethanol.
>
> Jim Meyer
>
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 12:00:14 -0700
> > From: "Ted Moffett"
> > Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Inconvenient Truth -- What WE REALLY HAVE TO
> > DO: " Apollo Project"
> > To: "Chris Storhok" , "Vision 2020"
> >
> > Message-ID:
>
> >
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > Chris et. al.
> >
> > Yes, that was Donovan's idea about high gas taxes, and of course many
> think
> > gas taxes should be raised, though some call it a "carbon tax" that
> could be
> > used to develop the infrastructure and technology to transition away
> from
> > fossil fuels. It's hard to see how addressing fossil fuel depletion and
> > global warming can be economically pain free... However, raising gas
> taxes a
> > lot is almost politically impossible.
> >
> > Thanks for the detailed info on the biofuels project you are working on.
> I
> > agree there is good evidence that biofuels can be practical and
> efficient
> > enough in some applications, as your discussion of the biofuels projects
> in
> > Alaska indicate. Wait for the final implementation, though. As they say,
>
> > the devil is in the details. Brazil, it appears, has a self supporting
> > biofuels program based on sugar cane, much better than corn for
> biofuels,
> > that supplies a lot of their fuel. From the analyses I have read,
> however,
> > biofuels are not a dominant solution to supplying the USA, not to
> mention
> > India and China, with the fuel we/they need, given current and expected
> > future consumption levels, at least not with internal combustion
> engines.
> >
> > I would like to hear more about this wood based biofuels program in
> Alaska.
> > It must be based on what is called "cellulosic" biofuels. I posted to
> > Vision2020 the suggestion that the Moscow/Pullman area could have its
> own
> > biofuels plant to produce fuel locally from the forest/agriculture
> biomass
> > resources available in our greater area. I did not get a single response
> to
> > this suggestion, but what the heck, it's only Vision2020.
> >
> > I don't think Vision2020 readers should need a "Warning" about your
> > discussion of the biofuels projects in Alaska being boring. The same
> ideas
> > might be applied here for affordable renewable biofuels at a local
> biofuels
> > plant... If that's boring, I suppose Vision2020 readers will find 10
> dollar
> > a gallon fossil fuel gas to be very exciting!
> >
> > Ted Moffett
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